Quit India Movement(QIM) also is known as ‘August Kranti’ (August Revolution) was a nation-wide Civil Disobedience Movement for which a call was given on August 7, 1942, by the Bombay session of the All-India Congress Committee. It was to begin on August 9 as per Gandhi’s call to ‘Do or Die’ in his Quit India speech delivered in Mumbai at the Gowalia Tank Maidan on August 8. Since then August 9 is celebrated as August Kranti Divas.
The Hindutva camp not only opposed QIM but also provided multi-faceted and multi-dimensional support to the British rulers in suppressing this historic mass upsurge. In this connection, shocking documents are available; these should be read to be believed.
The British swiftly responded with mass detentions on August 8th itself. Over 100,000 arrests were made which included the total top leadership of Congress including Gandhi, mass fines were levied and demonstrators were subjected to public flogging. Hundreds of civilians were killed in the violence, many shot by the police and army. Many national leaders went underground and continued their struggle by broadcasting messages over clandestine radio stations, distributing pamphlets, and establishing parallel governments. Innumerable patriotic Indians were shot dead for the crime that they were holding Tricolour publically. Even before that, a terrible massacre took place in Mysore where the armed forces of Mysore Raja who was very close to Hindu Mahasabha and RSS shot dead 22 Congress activists for saluting Tricolour.
It is to be noted that after declaring Congress an anti-national and unlawful organization, the British masters allowed only Hindu Mahasabha and the Muslim League to function.
Most of us know that the then Communist Party of India opposed the QIM thus betraying a great phase of a mass upsurge in the history of the freedom struggle. But it is well documented that despite CPI’s call for keeping aloof from QIM large number of Communist activists participated in it. Moreover, CPI later offered an unconditional apology for opposing it.
Hindu Mahasabha led by ‘Veer’ Savarkar ran coalition governments with Muslim League in 1942.
However, what role the then Hindutva camp—consisting of the Hindu Mahasabha and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh —played in the QIM is under wraps for reasons unknown. The Hindutva camp not only opposed QIM but also provided multi-faceted and multi-dimensional support to the British rulers in suppressing this historic mass upsurge. In this connection, shocking documents are available; these should be read to be believed.
4. “Veer” Savarkar Led Hindu Mahasabha Joined Hands With the British Rules to Suppress QIM
While addressing the 24th session of the Hindu Mahasabha at Cawnpore (now Kanpur) in 1942, Savarkar outlined the strategy of the Hindu Mahasabha of co-operating with the rulers in the following words:
“The Hindu Mahasabha holds that the leading principle of all practical politics is the policy of Responsive Co-operation [with the British]. And in virtue of it, it believes that all those Hindu Sangathanists who are working as councilors, ministers, legislators and conducting any municipal or any public bodies with a view to utilize those centres of government power to safeguard and even promote the legitimate interests of the Hindus without, of course, encroaching on the legitimate interests of others are rendering a highly patriotic service to our nation. Knowing the limitations under which they work, the Mahasabha only expects them to do whatever good they can under the circumstances and if they do not fail to do that much it would thank them for having acquitted themselves well. The limitations are bound to get themselves limited step by step till they get altogether eliminated. The policy of responsive co-operation which covers the whole gamut of patriotic activities from unconditional co-operation right up to active and even armed resistance will also keep adapting itself to the exigencies of the time, resources at our disposal and dictates of our national interest.”
This ‘Responsive Cooperation’ with the British masters was not only a theoretical commitment. It soon got concretized in the ganging up of Hindu Mahasabha with the Muslim League. Hindu Mahasabha led by ‘Veer’ Savarkar ran coalition governments with Muslim League in 1942. Savarkar defended this nexus in his presidential speech in the same session of Hindu Mahasabha at Kanpur, in the following words:
“In practical politics also the Mahasabha knows that we must advance through reasonable compromises. Witness the fact that only recently in Sind, the Sind-Hindu-Sabha on invitation had taken the responsibility of joining hands with the League itself in running coalition Government. The case of Bengal is well known. Wild Leaguers whom even the Congress with all its submissive-ness could not placate grew quite reasonably compromising and socialable as soon as they came in contact with the Hindu Mahasabha and the Coalition Government, under the premiership of Mr. Fazlul Huq and the able lead of our esteemed Mahasabha leader Dr Syama Prasad Mookerji, functioned successfully for a year or so to the benefit of both the communities.”
Hindu Mahasabha and Muslim League beside Bengal and Sind ran coalition government in NWFP also during this period.
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